The Failing Teacher and the Teachers' 'Code of Silence'

Police officers are well-known for their "code of silence"--their
hesitation to divulge information about the misdeeds of other
officers. As Los Angeles witnessed during the Rampart scandal, this
code is often the greatest enemy of prosecutors and police reformers.

Law enforcement, however, is not the only profession with a damaging
"code of silence." Educators have a similar code, and our silence
serves to keep failing teachers in the classroom, to the detriment of
hundreds or thousands of students per teacher. Studies estimate the
number of failing teachers at between 5% and 18%, and most high
schools or middle schools have teachers who are failing, or close to
it.

High school and middle school teachers know about failing teachers
because we often have the same students and, no matter how much we
may try to ignore harsh words about our colleagues, the students tell
us, or tell each other in our presence. We try to ignore it because
we know how hard teaching can be. We try to ignore it because any
sign of agreement from us in front of the students serves to
undermine the struggling teacher. We try to ignore it because we do
not want to seem petty or mean, because we have to deal with our
failing colleagues in meetings and on committees, and because it is
"none of our business" anyway. Countless times I have debated whether
to remain silent as I listened to an earnest but out of touch parent
express complete faith in a teacher whom I knew to be damaging his or
her child's education.

Teachers are evaluated primarily through administrative observations,
though many times overworked administrators and department chairs
fail to conduct them. Even when they are done, all but the worst
teacher is usually capable of surviving them if he or she knows about
it in advance. The failing teacher tells the students the day before
that "we are going to have a visitor tomorrow and anybody who causes
problems while the visitor is here is in big trouble" and promises
future reward. It usually works.

By carefully scheduling the observation times in advance, the
administrator is telling the teacher "I won't be stopping by your
class unannounced to see what's really going on in there because I
don't want to know. Let's arrange exactly when I‘ll come in so you
can put on the necessary show and then we're both covered."

Sometimes a failing teacher's classroom is a daily battleground. In
other cases, failing teachers and their students reach an unspoken
agreement -- the teacher pretends to teach and the students pretend
to learn. The students are given a light amount of busy work and the
students use the extra time to do work for their other classes, pass
notes, or chat in low voices. Everybody is happy -- the class is
relatively quiet (often an administrator's judge of a teacher's
competence goes no deeper than the question -- "is it quiet in
there?"), the failing teacher survives, and the students have less
work to do. When it is necessary, the students will put on a show in
front of any bothersome visitors.

Failing teachers often compound their problems by refusing to refer
out disruptive students. Failing teachers know that most
administrators know little about what is really happening in the
classroom and that, as long as they do not bring attention to
themselves, the teacher will be presumed to be "doing fine."
Referrals serve to draw unwanted attention from administrators.

One of the reasons that administrators often would rather not know
about failing teachers is that it is frequently difficult to find
suitable replacements. This is particularly true of teachers who work
in crime-ridden areas where few teachers want to go, or who teach one
of the many subjects where there is a shortage of qualified teachers.
According to former U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley, 28
percent of high school math teachers and 55 percent of physics
teachers have neither majors nor minors in their subjects. Over a
third of all teachers in grades seven through twelve are teaching a
subject that they have not studied.

More importantly, because of the union and tenure protections
teachers enjoy, it is costly and time-consuming to terminate a
teacher, particularly once their probationary period is over.
Nationally, it takes between two and three years and costs roughly
$60,000 to fire a teacher.

It is unspoken but well understood among teachers that these
protections often keep bad teachers in the classroom, yet because of
the trying nature of our profession we are hesitant to surrender
these safeguards. That is why I am skeptical that a genuine solution
to the problem will ever come from us. Failing teachers? We'd rather
not talk about it.

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